Left Behind
by Missmishka
Summary: ***Post S2 Finale*** Andrea and her rescuer work together to find the others. 5/5 COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I wrote this between my second and third viewings of the episode and realize with the third that some details are not exact, but will leave the piece as is for now. If there is anything anyone feels to be glaringly inaccurate, please let me know so I can correct it asap. I think I was consistent in keeping this present tense, especially with it being so short, but 'tense' is something I often mess up in my writing, so if you see that flubbed up anywhere, feel free to point that out for a tweak as well.

_**Left Behind, by MissMishka**_

DISCLAIMER: The usual warnings, I claim no ownership of these characters, they are simply borrowed with love and adoration from the original creators to have their stories embellished on a little more than the show may do. Not for any profit.

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><p>The constant running is exhausting her body, but the distraction it provides her mind is welcome as Andrea forces her feet to keep moving.<p>

Her shoulder is weighed by the bag of weapons and she wonders briefly at the additional strain on her flagging reserves, but can't bring herself to abandon the bag.

It was Rick's bag.

It had held the guns and ammunition for the group and it symbolized one of their most prized possessions.

Rick had taken Daryl, Glenn and T-Dog back into Atlanta for this bag.

Dale had guarded it for them.

She would not leave the bag, no matter how close to empty it was.

A well-used Sheriff's Department duffel may be all she has left of her friends.

They had left her, literally, holding this bag.

Holding on to it seems somehow vital to her as she continues to press on, barely a step ahead of the Walkers that dog her every move.

This is worse than any of the nightmares that had driven her decision to opt-out with Jenner.

She fights on, though, refusing the alternatives of suicide by her own hand or death at theirs.

Andrea owes it to Dale's memory and to whoever else had been lost on the farm, to just keep trying.

It can't end like this for her. She isn't ready for it; no longer wants it.

She can't just be lost in these woods; she isn't a scared little girl like Sophia. She is a grown woman; a fighter.

And she is scared to death.

The gun jams, ending any usefulness it may have had and she feels the noose tightening around her neck.

She curses the weapon along with all fickle things that stop working when they're most needed.

There are too many of them near her now. She can't fight them off.

She takes flight, running as quickly as she can with the bag bouncing against her back. She has no bullets for the glock, no shells for the shotgun. The bag begins to feel heavier with each growl and twig snap she hears from the zombies around her.

It is useless to keep the duffel and she forces herself to shed it.

Much as she would like to deny the truth, she had seen the others leave the farm. She had raced after Rick without him stopping his vehicle to pick her up.

She had been left behind and the bag would not save her now any more than the group would.

The guns still proves somewhat useful as she wields it to bash in the head of one Walker with the butt of the weapon, but she doesn't see that working again. Just in case, she tucks the bloody Ladysmith in her parka.

There's a pocket knife in the pocket of her pants and that is all she has left between herself and death.

She unsheathes it without much hope of avoiding the latter, just as a zombie stumbles into her.

One she's able to handle with the knife to its face, but another comes right after it and she goes down under its weight.

The threat of zombie death, though, is removed so quickly she can barely process it. The thing's head is cleaved from the body in the blink of an eye and that body then falls to the side of her.

Air moves quickly in and out of her lungs and Andrea's relief is boundless.

She gazes up at her savior, seeing the long, lethal blade of sword dripping the blood of the Walker it had just beheaded. Her eyes follow the blade to the hand holding the hilt and onward.

Her breaths slow and her heart thuds ominously as she begins to take in the fuller picture of the figure standing over her. It does not wield a scythe, but the black hood obscuring the face brings to mind immediate thoughts of Death.

Perhaps this was not a savior after all.

"Were you bitten?"

She blinks at the words, more surprised by the feminine voice that spoke them than by the point of the blade suddenly aimed at her throat as the figure awaits Andrea's answer.

"Your head is as easily removed as his was," the sword presses in and can no longer be ignored. "Now, again, were you bitten?"

"No," she whispers, afraid to try shaking her head with the blade at her neck. "I'm ok. You got it just in time."

"I expect you to return the favor should the need arise."

The sword is withdrawn and a hand raises to the push the hood back.

A woman.

_Wouldn't Lori just shit a brick?_

A lone woman, wielding a sword had just swooped in to save Andrea's life.

She rather likes that idea, but there's no time to enjoy the irony of the moment.

The two Walkers are perilously close to the woman's back and Andrea begins to scramble for some kind of weapon to kill them, ready to repay her debt immediately to this stranger. Her mind is slow to catch on to the fact that this heroine wasn't the type to be unaware of her impending doom.

"Behind you," she cries out as soon as she gets a big enough rock in her hand to push to her feet and after the zombies.

"These are mine."

The words fail to reach her through the adrenaline rushing through her at the threat she faces, but the blade thrust out to block her path to the Walkers does the trick of halting her forward motion.

Confusion fills her as Andrea's gaze moves once more up the blade. Her eyes catch on the chains running from the stranger's left hand to the necks of the two zombies behind her.

"What are you?" her whisper expresses the same disbelieving horror she feels at what her eyes seem to be seeing.

"Michonne," the woman answers smoothly before grinning. "And the correct phrasing of the question is still '_who_ am I.'"

_That's nice,_ Andrea thinks as her brain tries to process the scene, _so who the hell is Michonne?_


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I've just finished catching up on the comics up to issue #95 and the Michonne origins piece that ran recently in Playboy-thanks to the faithful fans who shared those scans online so we didn't have to buy that particular magazine. I'm ready to continue this for a bit, despite my hating to have yet another work in progress for this fandom. I just want ti get Andrea back to the group and Michonne introduced to the others in my fashion before we see how the show does it.

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><p>"No matter how nice the idea of an actual conversation may be, we need to move," Michonne declares as Andrea continues to try and process her new situation. "Do you have a weapon?"<p>

The voice demands focus on a question requiring an answer and her sluggish mind starts to regain energy at the task of thought.

"I had a bag," she turns her blue eyes to the area she had dropped the duffle and finds Walkers.

Everywhere.

"Oh God," she whispers, exhaustion tugging at her every muscle as her mind tells her body it that they're far from done running.

"Stay close to me," her savior orders, dropping the chains she held to take the sword hilt in both hands.

Andrea's attention strays for a moment to those creatures the woman had been leading and she's amazed to see them stay in place where the chains fall; like hobbled horses.

There are so many questions that she wants to ask this stranger but she knows she never will. This new world wasn't like the old one where it mattered why or how people did what they did so long as the end result was survival.

Dale had tried to keep the group grounded in the world that had been, the world where Andrea would stop to ask this Michonne what the hell she was doing walking armless, jawless zombies like dogs on leashes, but Dale is dead. And it doesn't matter what pets this person may chose to keep if they helped keep them alive.

"Go for your bag," Michonne orders before springing into action.

There is no other word for it, one moment the woman is standing there with her feet planted and braced on solid earth and the next she's pushing forward from the balls of her feet and flying toward the staggering Walkers.

She cuts through them with effortless skill and liquid grace, moving as nimbly as a dancer to evade the clawing hands that reach for her before she drops the creatures with a hack or slice to the skull. Andrea was well familiar with the expression 'heads will roll' when someone is in a fury, but until this moment she has never seen it actually happen.

For several moments, she's transfixed by the macabre display; the splatter of coagulated blood accompanied by severed limbs, heads or scalps. The dead are dropping like swatted flies, a swathe of their corpses littering the forest floor on a path to the duffle bag and Andrea is tired just from watching the carnage, but this Michonne doesn't pause. She's a machine, pressing forward without fear or hesitation, just seeing her objective and fucking going for it.

A rattle of chain startles her and Andrea's eyes jerk from the bloodbath before her to the …_things_ beside her. The nearest one seems to fix its cloudy, sightless eyes upon her and it bends toward her while making a noise in its throat that raises the hairs on the back of her neck. It's a sound of hunger and she knows if the thing still had mouth and limbs it would be tearing into her flesh at that very moment.

Andrea turns and stumbles away from it with eyes widen in horrified disgust as she sees that the zombie may have lost its jawbone, but it still had a tongue and that tongue was flapping against the roof of the thing's mouth like it could taste her.

"Now, Terry," a chastising voice breaks into the moment, "that is no way to treat our new friend."

Michonne appears before Andrea with an expression that can only be described as sheepish, like she was apologizing for the thing's actions. The woman extends a gloved hand and Andrea instinctively accepts the strap she's handed. She looks around in confusion that quickly turns to disbelief when she sees that the immediate area has been cleared of Walkers by this lone, sword-swinging female.

"You'll have to forgive him. It's been so long since they tried to kill me that I forget sometimes….," the woman turns dark eyes toward the chained ghouls and her expression becomes haunted; hunted. "I fixed them, though. They can't bite you."

"You…know them?"

As questions go, it's the least important one to be asking yet it's the only one that stutters off Andrea's tongue.

"Knew them," Michonne answers, stooping to pick up the ends of chain she had dropped to take out the Walkers. "My boyfriend, Mike," she indicates the one on the left as the creatures turn toward them, "and you've met his idiot best friend, Terry. No offense, Ter."

_She talks to them_, is all Andrea can think as the woman threads the end of the chains through a metal ring sewn into the back of her left glove. _Wonderful. Now I'm not just left behind and lost alone in the woods. I alone in the darkening woods with a lethal weapon wielding woman who could very possibly be batshit insane. Must be a Monday._

"We need to move from here. There's plenty more still coming this way."

As if to emphasize that statement, twigs begin snapping nearby and leaves on the ground seem to rustle all around them from the shuffling feet of more stragglers from the herd.

Funny how this nightmare would only end with sleep, but Andrea knows they have much to do before this hellish day is over for her.

And even if, when, they find something approaching safety for the night, she knows sleep will not be coming no matter how exhausted her body may be.


	3. Chapter 3

"I need to get to the highway," Andrea says once they've put some distance between themselves and the bulk of the herd. "My people, that's where they would have gone."

"Highways are no good. These things seem to flock to them. It's like they remember enough of being human to know that a highway or interstate is what you take to get from one place to another."

"No offense, but our current situation disproves some of your theory," Andrea points out, taking a moment to rest against a tree trunk and think wistfully of simple things like a sip of water. "Those things are all over these woods. Not a stretch of pavement in sight."

"All things considered, what makes you so sure that 'your people' have survived to go anywhere?"

The tone and implication that the group could be lost is unacceptable. Andrea knows when she finds them again that they may be missing a few, but not all. There has to be some of them left, because…

"Because surviving is what we do," she says simply.

To prove the words, she pushes away from the tree's support, breathes deep, stands tall and begins moving once more through the woods. In the fading light a flutter on a tree up ahead catches her eye and she moves toward it. The faded material is frayed from the elements, but she still recognizes it.

"We're in my grid," she whispers aloud, fingering the strip of once blue fabric that she'd pinned to this tree weeks ago.

She pushes past the memories of Sophia's fate and forces her mind back to those searches. Closing her eyes, she puts herself back on the farm, bent along with the others over a map of the area as Rick divided it up into search quadrants. They had moved the search east toward that house Daryl had found, so she needs to go west to get back to the highway.

"Red," she opens her eyes and turns to her companion, careful not to look past the other woman's shoulders. "We need to find red strips on the trees. That was Rick and Shane's sector and they were closest to the highway. We find their markers, we move north and west and we can find the road before it gets too dark."

Dark eyes look back at her like Andrea's the one with questionable sanity, but there's no time to waste explaining. She'd survived alone for hours in these woods this day; she could make it alone to the highway if she has to, especially now that she has her bearings.

Without caring if Michonne follows or decides this to be a good time to part ways, Andrea begins moving quickly through the trees, eyeing the trunks and low branches like a hawk for a flash of red. When she finally sees it it takes all her will not to laugh out loud at the relief she feels.

"What exactly are your people like?"

The question startles her to a stop and she isn't able to stifle a little shriek of surprise as she whirls to find Michonne behind her.

"I just don't want to walk in completely unprepared if you happen to be right. I haven't met any living people in a few weeks now and hanging around with these two isn't keeping my people skills very sharp."

"You think?" Andrea can't help but scoff, knowing how off put _she_ is by the other woman's choice of companions.

She can tell the bite in her reply isn't appreciated and perhaps even hurts the stranger as Michonne's expression closes off and becomes rather stern.

"Mock if you must, but having these two has kept me from being attacked by many of these things. They don't attack one another. If I walk slow and keep quiet, it's like I blend right in. I've passed by countless creatures without stirring their interest. It worked pretty well for me up to now."

The statement reminds Andrea of Atlanta. Rick and Glenn covered in gore, shuffling among a street filled with Walkers until the rain washed the scent away.

"Your method is a bit cleaner, I suppose," she muses aloud and then proceeds to provide her companion with the back-story as they walk along.

Before she realizes it darkness surrounds them as they come to a stop at the bottom of a slope that will take them up to the guardrail that marked the highway.

She's done it. Andrea has found her way back to some place familiar in all of this madness.

She scrambles up the slope, not caring that there's no path and she often has to claw at dirt, practically crawling to get to the top. When her hand slaps against the cold metal of the guardrail she wraps her arm around it and collapses, thinking she could break down crying right then and there just at having found a stupid road.

"No, really, go on. Find your friends. I'll be along in a moment once I've found an actual path up to the highway. I appreciate the offer of assistance to get up there with you, though."

Michonne's sarcastic mutterings finally draw Andrea from her thoughts of relief to realize that the other woman can't exactly follow her with those armless zombies in tow. Before she can do more than think of apologizing the woman drifts away into shadows, apparently in search of said path to find her own way up to the road.

Andrea regroups and pushes herself over the guardrail to stand on the roadside surveying the vehicles. This isn't the exact spot where Sophia had gotten away from them and she has some trouble getting her bearings in the dark. It would help to have the Winnebago sticking out like a big white sore thumb to tell her which way she needs to go to find the car.

She considers calling out, but has no idea who of the group may be there to call for or what else may hear any noise she makes.

Uncertain, she goes left; mostly because that's the direction Michonne had gone below so Andrea can at least be certain of finding the other woman by going that same way. All kinds of vehicles get her eye as she passes, looking for the little old thing they'd left their message to Sophia on.

That car would have been their lighthouse; the beacon that would have drawn in any survivors from the group. It was that same old beater that she sought in the darkness.

Finally, she finds it. Stumbles upon it, to be factual, when her feet slip tiredly on some gravel and she falters against the hood of a vehicle.

She leans over the hood, breathing heavily with exhaustion and emotion as her eyes lock on the white lettering that remains on the windshield. Her feet shuffle closer until her fingers touch the "S" painted on the glass.

Rain has washed away most of the message, but she still sees it as bright as it had been when Carol set aside the brush after completing the task of writing the words.

_Sophia stay here, we will come every day. _

And they had, that first week, but then they had stopped. Not that any of it had mattered, given that poor little girl's fate.

Shaking away those thoughts for the sake of sanity, Andrea turns from the vehicle and looks around desperately for the others.

It quickly becomes clear, though, that she's the only living thing on the road.

Her eyes catch a familiar blue Ford and she staggers toward it with her heart thudding heavier in her chest with each step. Its Hershel's farm truck, of that she has no doubt. She'd driven it often enough and ridden in or on it even more of late.

The last she had seen it T-Dog had been behind the wheel with Lori and Beth getting in beside him. If the truck was here then those three surely had been as well, but where had they gone and why would they have left the vehicle.

One possible answer presents itself as the most likely truth; the others had come and together they had all left this place.

Which brings her to a more painful truth; there is obviously no one waiting for or even expecting Andrea to rejoin the group.


	4. Chapter 4

Michonne moves with a quiet stealth that Andrea will have to get used to, but it reminds her somehow of Daryl and that comforts Andrea as she senses the other woman nearby. There isn't a sound that had betrayed the stranger's presence. She can't explain it, but Andrea just knows suddenly that she isn't alone any longer.

Dark eyes meet hers as she turns to find the other woman standing behind her. Michonne's gaze is sympathetic and so understanding that Andrea could have hugged her and bawled.

The obvious question goes unasked and this woman earns Andrea's eternal gratitude for not voicing it.

"We should take shelter in one of these vehicles for the night then move on in the morning."

Andrea nods her agreement at the statement and moves past Michonne to open the door of the faded yellow beater. The interior light flickers on allowing her blue eyes to search for and quickly locate the crate of supplies that they had left for Sophia. A shout of relieved laughter escapes her as she leans into the back to grab a bottle of water and one of Gatorade from the crate.

She pulls back from the vehicle, finds Michonne hovering nearby and extends the bottles toward the woman in offering.

"This car," she says as her new friend takes the water. "It's on the small side for grownups, but it has supplies in it. We had hoped...it doesn't matter. This is our best bet for the night."

The woman accepts the statement with a simple nod, not asking for expansion on the abruptly ended 'hope.' Andrea twists the cap off her Gatorade and gulps it down greedily while Michonne drinks more frugally of her water.

"You can try lying down in the back. I'll take the front."

Again she nods without discussion at the instruction, but she doesn't imagine either of them will get any rest in the circumstances. She recaps her bottle with only a quarter of drink left in it and moves to slide gratefully into the back seat. She pulls the door shut carefully behind her, making sure she doesn't make any overly loud noise to draw any extra attention than the light shining in the darkness would.

Her intent is to begin immediately sorting out the supplies left for Sophia to determine rations, but before she begins she looks to see where her companion is. The rattle and clank of chain draws her gaze to the driver's side of the vehicle and through the window she can make out Michonne wrapping a leash around the side mirror of the car, anchoring one of the zombies there.

It disturbs Andrea a little; how easily she had accepted the presence of the Walkers. While the smell of them couldn't be denied as repugnant and the sight of their mutilated bodies made her gag, the things were quiet and had been easily forgotten during most of their trek through the woods.

Michonne leads the other 'pet' around the front of the vehicle and wraps its chain around the passenger side mirror before opening the door to get inside.

"They'll let us know if others approach," the woman seems inclined to explain as she settles into the seat and removes her poncho.

Andrea doesn't voice the question of "how" that pops into her head, finding it easier to trust the statement as something her companion likely had some experience with. She turns her attention to the crate and begins pulling out supplies and organizing them on the seat beside her. It isn't much, but they had had the forethought to leave more than a single days' supplies just in case they hadn't been able to keep the promise of checking the highway every day.

The overhead light dims then fades, drawing her attention upward before her task is complete and her gaze catches on Michonne staring curiously at the faded lettering on the windshield. Again, the woman allows her obvious questions to go unasked and in that moment Andrea realizes how little answers meant anymore. Some things were obvious in this world and voicing facts was a useless exercise in painful memory.

It would be obvious to anyone who had survived to this point that Sophia was someone who had been known and lost to the Apocalypse. Just as it had been obvious that Andrea's friends had been to this place but left without her. Saying these things, explaining such occurrences, would be redundant and just force a person to think about those painful circumstances.

While it might always niggle in the back of her brain for however long this person remained in her life, Andrea decides then and there that she'll never ask how Michonne came to be travelling through those woods when she had. She'll never question the life the woman had had or the choices that she had made to result in her leading two zombies around on chains. None of it matters now.

Anyone with a fraction of sense can tell that it had all meant a great deal to the woman in question and asking Michonne to open up about her past could weaken the great fighter Andrea senses the woman to be. That would be a pointless and potentially fatal endeavor.

All that matters now is that they're in this together and Andrea is grateful to have _someone_ watching her back. Having another back to watch would also help her to focus on things outside herself, keeping her mind sharp and intent on _their_ survival rather than the selfishly pitying thoughts that could easily crush her spirit.

While finding the others is her primary goal, Andrea feels confident that, if necessary, she and Michonne can manage just fine on their own.

"Would you care for a fruit or meat?" she asks brightly in the darkness, feeling renewed with her optimism.

"Fruit. The meat will serve us better in the morning to start our journey."

"Peaches or fruit cocktail," she queries while repacking the other goods in the crate.

"Peaches."

With a nod the other woman cannot possibly see, Andrea acknowledges the choice and leans forward to give Michonne the fruit she had chosen along with the only utensil they had thought to leave with the supplies; a spork.

The fruit is a snack sized serving in a container easily opened by peeling off the top and Andrea tears into her portion gratefully. Sweet syrupy goodness explodes on her tongue as she tips the container into her mouth for a bite. An appreciate moan from the front tells her that Michonne is experiencing a similar bliss at her food and the blonde smiles at having been able to provide that for her new friend.

She leans her back against the door, stretches her legs out across the backseat and quietly enjoys her cocktail. Outside is stillness with a bright moon above and the undead things once called Mike and Terry standing guard beside the car. Inside is dark and silent, but peacefully so.

Once her fruit cup is empty she sets the container aside on the floorboard, reaches for the folded blanket they'd left for Sophia and unfurls it over herself. She would have offered the covering to Michonne, but had already seen the other woman using her poncho as a mantle so Andrea feels no guilt as she settles beneath the blanket.

Despite her earlier assumptions that she would get no rest, sleep pulls her eyes closed and steadies her breathing as her mind goes blissfully blank.


	5. Chapter 5

"I think I can trust her. She's been through a lot, I mean, we all have, but I can tell she's a good person. A quick thinker, too, to remember this car and the supplies. Maybe her friends _are_ still alive somewhere. If we can find them, our chances for survival will increase by each person in the group. It's worth trying for."

Andrea lies under the cover for several moments, wondering at her mind and hearing before it becomes clear that Michonne is definitely talking to someone. She slowly begins to push her head out from beneath the cover until she can look toward the front seat to see who exactly the other woman is carrying this conversation out with.

The sound of a body thudding against her door puts an end to the 'slowly' as she shrieks in surprise, scrambling across the backseat toward the other side of the car and fighting to untangle herself from the blanket as she goes.

"They're an effective alarm clock," Michonne says with a smile in her voice as Andrea realizes it had just been the Walker chained outside. "They react to the sun, don't like the heat, I guess, and dawn always starts them off a little restless."

Wide-eyed and panting, Andrea stares at the back of the front seat and reconsiders some of the peace she had made with herself in the night hours. Perhaps this woman's sanity was something to be of concern with as Andrea had originally thought upon first full sight of her savior.

"What kind of meat do we have to choose from for breakfast?"

The utter banality of the question and calm with which it is asked snaps Andrea from her muddled thoughts. She looks away from the front of the car to look out the window and find that the Walker tethered outside has stumbled to the end of its leash toward the front of the car.

_It had all really happened._

Sleep has a way of lulling one into thinking that the world would be different when they awoke. It gives the hope or illusion that things remembered have been nothing more than dream or nightmare; all tricks of the mind.

The evidence of her reality makes Andrea wonder if she would be better off never sleeping again or never waking, but such is the thinking she had told herself she wouldn't do anymore before sleep had claimed her.

She has her survival and Michonne's to think about now. Breathing deeply for calm, she shifts in the back until she's sitting upright and bent over the crate. She pulls the cans up and reads each label aloud before setting them on the seat beside her.

"Vienna sausages, SPAM or … sardines."

She smiles mistily at the last item. Darryl had chosen to include them in the kit as something of a private joke for Sophia, who had long scrunched her nose up at the tinned fish. That can was one of the very few items that had remained in the pantry of Dale's RV from the very beginning. The things are likely expired and toxic beyond belief, but she finds herself holding on to that tin.

"SPAM," she hears her companion say and she hands the selection forward without looking up.

Swallowing back emotion, she twists off the top of the sardines and contemplates the tiny fish nestled together inside the can. Her hands are filthy, but she only sees dirt from the ground without any traces of Walker blood, so she shrugs away her worries on hygiene and gingerly reaches in with thumb and index finger to pluck out her first bite.

She shoves it into her mouth, trying not to recoil from the snack as a child like Sophia would have. Its food and nutrients and she needs both; is grateful for a chance to eat this. The spice and texture hit her tongue and she gags reflexively, covering her mouth to keep from spitting the bite right back out. While Michonne chuckles at her from the front seat, Andrea turns watering eyes to the container and reads the fine print beneath the largely scripted "Sardines" on the label.

"_In Louisiana Hot Sauce."_

_Dale Horvath, you twisted old man_, she thinks beginning to laugh and cry as memories of the man flood her. She forces herself to swallow down every last fish, crying and shaking the whole time with emotions she can't explain.

Michonne had stopped laughing at her when the tears began and the two women eat without acknowledging the moment. They continue to feign absorption in their food until the trash is set aside and then Andrea is allowed several more moments to compose herself before the other woman speaks.

"The sun rises, we should be going."

There is a quiet sympathy in the tone and Andrea knows that her companion would have preferred to rush them on their way, but gives the blonde some time to grieve instead.

"I'll need to…visit the bushes before we leave," she blushes, wiping her hands on her dirty pants before untucking her shirt to scrub at the tears on her face.

She sees the other woman's dark head bob in agreement before Michonne shoves her door open, using it to force back the zombie that had been leaning against the car. The woman unwraps the chain from the side mirror and moves the Walker around to the other side of the car, clearing the way for Andrea to exit.

Grateful to not have the creature to walk past, she moves from the back of the car. Muscles stiff from the exertion of the previous day added with the cramped sleeping quarters protest her sudden standing and she takes a few minutes to stretch out the kinks. She sees her companion going through similar motions on the other side of the car and smiles to herself.

After seeing to their biological needs after a night spent stuck in a vehicle, they gather the few remaining supplies in the crate, including the blanket and move it to the pickup. If they looked they may have found a better source of transport; something with more gas, room, fuel efficiency or supplies, but she has no desire to disturb this graveyard any more than they had with their scavenging all those weeks ago. To her thinking, the familiar vehicle is the best choice, though. When she finds the others they'll be more likely to give a friendly reception when they recognize the Ford and then the driver.

Michonne makes no protest when Andrea gets behind the wheel of the truck and shuts the door in preparation to leave. The other woman pulls on her poncho and stands outside the vehicle for a few moments, facing her pets.

For the first time Andrea wonders how they'll transport the Walkers. Her hand goes to the door handle, thoughts forming to get out and help load the creatures onto the back of the truck, but as she watches the other woman suddenly whips out her katana and beheads both zombies with one swift slash of the blade.

She watches the heads fly and corpses crumble with her jaw dropping and eyes stunned while Michonne calmly flicks the blood from her sword then replaces the weapon in its holster on her hip. The other woman turns from the bodies without a second's hesitation, walks around the truck and climbs into the passenger seat.

"We won't be needing them anymore with your friends, I assume," the woman speaks quietly, eyes staring straight ahead through the windshield as Andrea gapes at her. "I see no reason to disturb everyone with that kind of first impression."

The implication is simple and Andrea accepts it with a nod; those Walkers had been part of a journey that Michonne has now completed and the path is put behind her, never to be revisited. She feels a pang for the other woman and wonders at what kind of emotion her companion is feeling behind her careful mask, but it's clear that Michonne is not about to give in to any kind of grief.

Without another word, Andrea faces forward, grips the steering wheel with her left hand and turns the keys in the ignition with her right. The engine growls to life and she lets out a sigh of relief as the gas gauge climbs upward to over the halfway point. They hadn't abandoned the vehicle as disabled; the group had clearly just thought it excessive.

She stifles worries about the losses to the group that that implies and quickly turns the truck around to get over the median to the other side of the highway.

"How can you be certain they would have gone this way?"

Andrea makes no effort to explain herself as she aims the truck away from the Greene farms and begins gassing it. She can't explain it, she just knows. There is no other way they could have gone to get away from that herd, is the obvious answer, but it's more than that. Her people went this way and she will find them is she just keeps going.

They had a head start, but would have stopped for the night, just as she and Michonne had. Sooner or later they would find them.

The drive is quiet and Andrea pushes the pickup as fast as she can, taking drink from her Gatorade after an hour or so when Michonne hands her the bottle, silently declaring that she needed to hydrate. As the road winds back into the woods she slows and both woman lean forward in their seats as they approach a slight pull off on the left.

"Well I'll be damned."

Michonne speaks the words, but they echo Andrea's thought and tell her that she isn't imagining the sight before them; or, at least, she isn't alone in imagining it.

Daryl and T-Dog look up from the familiar red and white Chevy they're pouring gas into and the redneck slowly lowers the gas jug as Andrea stops the Ford a short distance away.

"Well, I'll be damned," she hears the man mutter as she shoves open the driver's side door and stumbles out.

The words and that voice is all she needs to convince herself.

With a cry, Andrea breaks into a run and rushes the duo, grabbing at both men with her arms to hug them close as evidence that she's found them. T-Dog claims her for himself, wrapping her in a rib compressing bear hug that lifts her from the ground as his lips spill apologies and explanations that she doesn't even care to try understanding, aside from a gruff "I saw you go down."

"Who else?" she pulls back to ask, keeping the question short as breath is scarce from the way the man continues to hold her.

"You think you might let her go before you succeed in actually killing her," Daryl scoffs, shaking his head at T-Dog's antics before somberly addressing her question. "Lost Shane, Patricia and Jimmy. The others are set up back that way a bit," he points a helpful finger down a rutted roadway between the trees, "at the ruins of an old mill house. Nothing but old stone walls but it kept us safe enough for the night. Just had to get some gas for this old clunker before we head out for somewhere else."

"It would seem this reunion was fated, then," Michonne observes quietly from behind them, drawing everyone's attention at once. "That we found you before your finished gassing up and left here."

Before Andrea can speak, T-Dog drops her to go for his gun, leaving her to fall on her ass while Daryl brings his crossbow forward to aim at the stranger and Michonne automatically unsheathes her katana in defense.

"That a sword?" both men blink and ask as the lethal blade catches sunlight.

"Relax," Andrea orders them all while scrambling back to her feet, "she's with me. This is Michonne," she moves to the woman's side and gives her a pointed stare until the katana is returned to sheathe. "She saved my life."

Daryl's blue eyes lock with her, looking for and finding the truth of the statement before he gives a nod of acceptance and settles the crossbow once more at his back. He gives no introduction or further acknowledgement of the woman, turning instead back to his chore to refuel the Chevy now that he has been assured there's no threat to the group.

His easy acceptance draws a snort from Andrea and she can only hope that the others will take the newcomer as simply. Daryl Dixon could be a bit of an oddity, but he valued the lives in their group and, apparently, by saving one of them Michonne had done ok by him.

Andrea smiles at his back, giving his arm a squeeze of thanks when manages to get the other woman moving toward the woods and the road Daryl had indicated the others to be down. He looks up at the gesture and just gives a nod to accept her thanks.

Before she disappears around the front of the truck, he stops her with a simple statement.

"Never would have left without you if we had known there was a chance you'd made it."

She looks back and finds both men staring after her with their expressions set and grim, regret at her ordeal and promise to prevent any kind of repeat written in the tense muscles of their bodies.

"You were trying to protect the group," she says, smiling as she's able to repeat his own once spoken words back to him. "We're good."

She walks away before giving in to the urge to run back and hug the men again, biting back tears as she heads into the woods.

"They seem like good people," Michonne says, quietly keeping pace with her steps.

_The best_, she thinks with a smile, but says nothing as she picks up the pace to reunite with the rest of the group.

~*~ _**The**** End**_~*~

* * *

><p>AN: A bit of a quick, happy ending, I know, but fitting I think. Hope you enjoyed and we'll see how close my muses are to the mark when S3 begins in October!


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